I found that scene to be the most unbelievable in the movie (beating out some strong competetion). It seems highly unlikely to me that a Confederate general's cook would be spending any time at all socializing with him - let alone risking pissing him off with prayers for emancipation at a time when the Confederate president was so enraged by Lincoln's emancipation proclamation that he threatened to hang any white commander of a Union negro regiment.
Stonewall Jackson was part of an army that captured and enslaved any able-bodied negro that that army found when they invaded Pennsylvania. There is an accout in the regimental history of my great great grandfather's Illinois cavalry regiment of one of their surgeon's black assistants becoming Stonewall Jackson's "body-servant" upon being captured by the Confederates. There is also an account therein of the harsh treatment that was inflicted by Jackson's men on the wounded Union soldiers that were under that surgeon's care, which included violently ripping blankets and clothes off of the wounded, stealing their food, and refusing to allow them to leave the area controlled by the Confederates even though they had all been paroled.
"Gods and Generals" probably is the best illustration of what physically happened before Gettysburg - the strategy, the movements of troops, the bravery of men led into the valley of death - that you're likely to see. And yet, even with nearly four hours of screen-time, it still feels like so much is missing.
I agree. It was as if the Peninsula campaign and Antietam had never occurred, since no mention was made of those battles whatsoever. Meanwhile, a huge chunk of movie time is devoted to trying to make Stonewall Jackson and the Confederates sympathetic characters by showing his fictitious relationship with a little girl and some ridiculous Christmas carolling and partying (one scene of which seemed to be included for no other reason than to give Ted Turner some screen time).
What about the arrogance and callousness of the Northern generals, who senselessly wasted their troops on futile charge after charge?
I disagree with this criticism. The only Union commander who had a bad habit of wasting his troops with charges was Ambrose Burnside, and he was certainly portrayed accurtately as a bungling general who was far from arrogant. The main problem with McClelland and Hooker as Union commanders was their timidity, not their arrogance.
Where's the bald-faced greed of the Southern generals, who were willing to risk everything to maintain a luxurious existence on the backs of millions of blacks?
Even though most of them held slaves (including Jackson), most Confederate generals (as opposed to Confederate political leaders) seemed to be motivated by misguided duty to their homeland and their lust for warfare and glory, not greed or a luxurious existence.
We want - no, we need - to see the blood, the death, the mistakes and the horror of war to remind us what it really is.
There was plenty of gore in Gods & Generals.
Leave the generals' long-winded, righteous speeches to the camera to the History Channel, and show us how it really was.
I didn't mind the speeches to the extent that they were historically accurate, it's just that many of Jackson's were not. The best "speech" of the movie, though, was not spoken by a general but sung by Bob Dylan (`Cross the Green Mountain) during the closing credits.
As much as I found the Confederate glorifying distortions in this movie laughable, though, I really enjoyed the movie because the battle scenes and strategy discussions seemed accurate and helped put the war in perspective.
Why do you characterize that as "fictitious"?
Jackson's relationship with Janie Corbin during the winter of 1862-63 is well known to Jackson historians.
Also, as in most films, they take create license to protray something that encapsulates. I think that was the reason for the dialogue between Jackson, the cook and God. It also was the reason for the dialouge between the house slave and the Union general. I think it brought out the complexities of slavery without making it the focus of the movie.